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DNS control - Setup

G

George_fs

Guest
Hi All,

I have purchased a VPS server from 1 & 1 and it comes loaded with Plesk. I am a web developer and plans to host many of my customers website on this server. i am not a technical expert and i would like to get some help on setting up dns from plex panel


The server comes with Plesk panel 11 . When i create a customer domain i get a control panel which already has all DNS setting configured in plesk . But i understand that will not work as the domain are in godday. Now most of my customers Domains are in godaddy. I belive there are two ways to do this

First is to point the domain to my servers name servers and then control dns from hosting . Does anyone know how this can be done.

The second option is to create all dns enteries in godaddy and point it to my VPS server. i was able to create an A record and point it to my server ip and my website worked fine. When i tried to create a MX record , it informed that i cannot point MX to an iP. can somebody guide how to create an hostname to get it working

Can somebody give me the best solutions for this

All Help is much appreciated

regards

George
 
I hope it help.

Add your main domain name in VPS with particular Dedicated IP and then create NS record in Domain DNS setting and then add NS record on your DOMAIN ADMIN PANEL with dedicated IP as you added in VPS' Domain DNS settings.
example
ns1.yourmaindomain.com A 192.192.192.192
ns2.yourmaindomain.com A 192.192.192.193
Add the above said DNS entires in DOMAIN ADMIN panel if you did this step and it will help you redirect all the things not only A record of domain.[/COLOR][/B]

Please create a MX record at Godaddy end with Server IP as you did with A record and then it will work.
 
1. First of all you need to have at-least 2 IPs on your dedicated server.
2. Go to Godaddy and register name-servers with:

ns1.yourdomain.com -> with IP #1
ns2.yourdomain.com -> with IP #2

3. Make sure you have enabled DNS template in Plesk Settings and always make sure Bind is running. You can enable watchdog to monitor it for you in plesk.

4. That's ALL ...For all domains you host on your server, simply point its nameservers to the above and everything works out automatically as longas you have setup hosting in your plesk server.

If you need help with this, I can gladly help, just PM me.
 
I wrote a huge long explanation on DNS and how to set it up in Plesk, how to configure your domains and so on and so forth.

If you want I will PM you the link.

Be warned that it it may be confusing and there may be inaccurate bits, but I can tell you that most people who have read it have either died of bordom or found it very informative. It is an either/or situation :)

Also note that it is intended for our VPS customers, but basically the same basic thing will apply to anyone who has a VPS or a dedicated server running Plesk. It also only mentioned Plesk 8.6 but that's not going to make any different here.


They key things are:
1) Create two nameserver host records (ns1 and ns2.your-hosting-company-name.com). You do this ONCE and you do it via your domain name registrar's control panel, no Plesk This is not the same as creating DNS records. In the GoDaddy control panel I think you'll find an option that says "Hosts" at the bottom left of the page when you go to adjust a domain's settings. You only do this for your hosting company domain name. You don't do this for your individual customer's domains.

When you create these two records you need to specify what IP addresses they are to point to. Ideally each of these two nameserver hosts records needs to point to a different IP. However, if you only have one IP then you can have both records pointing to the same IP. This isn't ideal but I cover it in my article.

2) Set up the DNS template correctly in Plesk - the default one will NOT do - so that when you add a domain to a subscription the DNS records are set up correctly.

3) Change the nameservers associated with the domains that you want to hosting to ns1.your-hosting-company-name.com and ns2.your-hosting-company-name.com

Done!

Well, there's more to it than that, but those are the basics.

OR, just use the DNS adjustment facillities in the GoDaddy control panel to create appropriate DNS records for each domain you want to host in Plesk, as suggested bu aashua.
 
Custom Nameservers

Faris Raouf said:
2) Set up the DNS template correctly in Plesk - the default one will NOT do - so that when you add a domain to a subscription the DNS records are set up correctly.
Click to expand...

Other than a missing "www" A record missing in the default template zone the default should work just fine. I have used it b4.

Also, since in the recent versions of plesk, www is automatically added when creating a subscription my earlier versions problem of a missing WWW A record is nologner a problem in 10.* and 11.*

In conclusion, the default plesk dns template / system should work just OK with custom nameservers.
 
Hi,

We just remove the PTR record for cleanliness and remove the default SPF record as its wrong in most multi-IP instances. We do make a lot of changes to the SOA template, unfortunately I can't recall what the default is for that but I think we lower values on ours.

Paul.
 
Name Server

Faris Raouf said:
I wrote a huge long explanation on DNS and how to set it up in Plesk, how to configure your domains and so on and so forth.


They key things are:
1) Create two nameserver host records (ns1 and ns2.your-hosting-company-name.com). You do this ONCE and you do it via your domain name registrar's control panel, no Plesk This is not the same as creating DNS records. In the GoDaddy control panel I think you'll find an option that says "Hosts" at the bottom left of the page when you go to adjust a domain's settings. You only do this for your hosting company domain name. You don't do this for your individual customer's domains.


Thank you for your help.

Since i am not too good in hosting , dns and all, can i clarify something. Sorry if my question looks stupid

1. when u say create name server in godaddy

Exp : my corp domain name is called corp.com ( which is in godaddy)

and my hosting VPS iP address is 2.2.2.2 ( which is with one & one )


so here do i go to my domain in godaddy called corp1.com and create a names server called ns1.corp.com and ns2.corp.com and point it to my VPS IP 2.2.2.2

now if i have a client who domain is www.client.com, i login to his godaddy account and change his nameserver to ns1.corp.com and ns2.corp.com and will my dns in plesk panel of VPS gets control

am i understanding this correctly
Click to expand...
 
George_fs said:
so here do i go to my domain in godaddy called corp1.com and create a names server called ns1.corp.com and ns2.corp.com and point it to my VPS IP 2.2.2.2

now if i have a client who domain is www.client.com, i login to his godaddy account and change his nameserver to ns1.corp.com and ns2.corp.com and will my dns in plesk panel of VPS gets control

am i understanding this correctly
Click to expand...

Yes, that's the basic idea.

BUT "create a names server called ns1.corp.com and ns2.corp.com and point it to my VPS IP 2.2.2.2" must be done in the correct way. Specifically, you need to click on the HOSTS option in the GoDaddy control panel page for corp.com, not the DNS option. When you are in the correct section, you should see it shows you have no host records and asks you to create them. You only enter "ns1" and then "ns2" because the corp.com part is implied.

When you have done that, you will have created your "namserver host records" and these will point to 2.2.2.2 BUT there's more to do!

You now have to add matching "A records" in corp.com via the DNS management section on GoDaddy for corp.com.
add one A record "ns1" pointing to 2.2.2.2 and then another A record "ns2" also pointing to 2.2.2.2.

You should NOT set the nameservers for corp.com to ns1.corp.com and ns2.corp.com if you intend controlling the DNS for corp.com via GoDaddy, but you should do so if you want to control it via Plesk, but only AFTER you hare happy everything is working correctly -- if you get it wrong, it will go horribly wrong.

Oh, heck, this is getting confusing. I'll post the url to my article: http://www.cymru1.net/linux-vps/vps-hints-and-tips.php (Click on the "Understanding DNS" option).

But please be aware of what the others have pointed out in their post on this topic -- in Plesk 10.x things are different to 8.6 - changes you make in the template do have an effect on domains you have previously created in Plesk.

What you need to do in the dns templates in plesk is to remove the default ns record (which is pretty useless) and add two ns record template objects, one being "ns1.corp.com" and the other being "ns2.corp.com"

But as I said before, please be careful here. If I've explained things badly, made an error, or you misunderstand, it can result in a mess and your hosted domains will not work and it can take hours or a day for corrections to be noticed by the entire internet. This is another reason I'm hesitant to post the link, but I've done so anyway. Use at your own risk. OK?
 
Last edited:
The 'Black Art' of DNS

Reading Forums I am always dismayed by some of the responses I see to DNS queries relating to Hosting Domains and setting up DNS Records, it is not some 'Black Art' it is as easy as 1,2,3, so a few basic rules and examples to help others.


1. Firstly, if you want to HOST your own NAMESERVERS for your clients all their Registrar NAMESERVER records need to be modified to reflect this change - this normally takes between 24-48hrs to propegate around the Internet and appear in 'who.is' records as most has the TTL (Time to Live) set to 1 day.

2. To reduce the delay, in the PLESK control panel set the TTL to 15mins or 1hr on all the domains in the SOA Records. This change will take 24-48hrs to update all the other NameServers.

3. Whilst you are awaiting for Step 2 to complete, choose a domain name you want to use as NAMESERVERS, in my case this is our main domain name seemegroup.com and in the DNS settings, create the following entries using your own PLESK CONTROL PANEL for the domain name and IP Addresses you want to use. (These are my examples)

ns.seemegroup.com. A 109.104.88.74
ns2.seemegroup.com. A 109.104.88.75
seemegroup.com. NS ns.seemegroup.com.
seemegroup.com. NS ns2.seemegroup.com.

Now, because I have a lot of clients and want to host them on different servers, it makes NO DIFFERENCE as to where the DNS records are as long as they resolve, so in ADDITION to the above, on the seemegroup dns settings I also have....

ns3.seemegroup.com. A 94.136.36.64
ns4.seemegroup.com. A 94.136.36.65
ns5.seemegroup.com. A 94.136.36.57
ns6.seemegroup.com. A 99.136.36.58

seemegroup.com. NS ns3.seemegroup.com.
seemegroup.com. NS ns4.seemegroup.com.
seemegroup.com. NS ns5.seemegroup.com.
seemegroup.com. NS ns6.seemegroup.com.

Technically I have the SAME domain main set up on THREE SERVERS (which everyone will tell you cannot be done) as 'authorative nameservers' and configured the records manually as follows:

A records for the 'www' point to the original hosting server at ns.seeemgroup.com
A records for the 'mail/smtp' point to the original hosting server ns2.seemegroup.com
MX Records for the Mailserver point to ns.seemegroup.com

Once you can PING ns.[nameserver].[ext] and get a result from it, you can change the NameServer Settings with the Registrar and it will result in minimum downtime. I normally do this on a Friday Night so I have the WHOLE weekend if there are any issues to resolve them.

This is the domain Template for Server 1
<domain>. NS ns2.seemegroup.com.
<domain>. NS ns.seemegroup.com.
<domain>. A 109.104.88.75
<domain>. MX (0) mail.<domain>.
ftp.<domain>. CNAME www.<domain>.
mail.<domain>. A 109.104.88.74
webmail.<domain>. A 109.104.88.75
www.<domain>. A 109.104.88.75

All Domains on this Server 1 created in Plesk will use these settings.

This is the domain Template for Server 2

<domain>. NS ns3.seemegroup.com.
<domain>. NS ns4.seemegroup.com.
<domain>. A 94.136.36.65
<domain>. MX (10) mail.<domain>.
ftp.<domain>. CNAME <domain>.
mail.<domain>. A 94.136.36.64
webmail.<domain>. A 94.136.36.65
www.<domain>. A 94.136.36.65

All Domains on this Server 2 created in Plesk will use these settings.

This is the domain Template for Server 3

<domain>. NS ns4.seemegroup.com.
<domain>. NS ns5.seemegroup.com.
<domain>. A 94.136.36.58
<domain>. MX (10) mail.<domain>.
ftp.<domain>. CNAME <domain>.
mail.<domain>. A 94.136.36.57
webmail.<domain>. A 94.136.36.58
www.<domain>. A 94.136.36.58

All Domains on this Server 3 created in Plesk will use these settings.

You will note I have TWO shared IP Addresses for each server, one IP address I use for the URL and WEBMAIL, the other I use for normal smtp/pop mail services to reduce traffic loads through the IP addresses.

So, in order of procedure.

A. Reduce the TTL setting in SOA on EACH domain you wish to change and wait 24-48hr for this to update.
B. Create the A Records and NS Records on the Domain you wish to use as a common nameserver.
C. When you can PING your new nameservers, change the NameServers with the Registrar for EACH domain.

The longest period I have had to wait for the change is 1hr....!

If you need to contact me directly, I am on [email protected] (08445 763237)
 
Great topic and information. I've been developing on the web for about 15 years using a number of providers to host all of the sites in my charge. Finally I decided to purchase a VPS account so I have more control over things and this was my first question.

I think all the info covers it but if I only have on IP do I set both name server records to the same number?

Thanks,
Andrew
 
Yes, I've just been experimenting and my registrar for my main domain name will allow me to assign the same ip number to ns1 and ns2 but if I try to point a domain name to them, I get an error that basically says, you can't point a domain using a duplicate ip.

For the time being I've made my ns1 with my ip number and created my ns2 using my VPS providers IP number... It seems to work but I'll get them to give me another ip. I don't want to quibble on things.

Thanks,
Andrew
 
Yeah, I'm not so sure if only one NS will be working....

My provider said that I can either set up my own name server or use theirs which leads me to believe that whenever I create a subscription in Plesk, records are being created on their name server. That being the case, if I create a name server record for my domain name and point it at their ip, although it isn't pointing at my ip, their ip still has a record.

I may play around with it and remove my single ip outright and just point to their ip numbers to prove it one way or another but in the long run I'll have to get a second ip number and do it right.

EDIT: Thanks for the tip about different servers for the name servers... I used to use Easy DNS with my own server in-house. Maybe I should just get another account with them. They had 4 ip numbers in 4 locations which seem like a good idea.
 
I have two more questions regarding setting up DNS records on Plesk:

1) In the documentation I came across the following info:

To restore the original configuration of server-wide DNS template:

Go to Server > DNS Settings.
Click Restore Defaults in the Tools group
Confirm the restoration of the DNS template zone and click OK.

Plesk updates automatically the zone name, hostname, administrator's e-mail address, and serial number, and writes the default values for the rest of Start of Authority record parameters to the zone files it maintains. If you are not satisfied with the default values, you can change them through the control panel.
Click to expand...

This seems to indicate that the default records should work right out of the gate without any need for modification. I'm using Plesk 11, is that so?


2) I am running Plesk 11 and there are IPv6 records and they look like they use a token for their settings. Do I just leave those as is?


Thanks for the help.

Andrew
 
Me again...

I'm reviewing the Plesk 11 info in DNS in the plesk-administrator-guide.pdf and came across this paragrpaph:


To view the default records in the server-wide DNS template:
Go to Tools & Settings > DNS Template Settings. All resource record templates will be displayed. The <ip> and <domain> templates are automatically replaced in the generated zone with real IP addresses and domain names.
Click to expand...

Am I to understand that where it shows <ip> or <domain> it should show the real ip or domain name, or are these tokens that will be interpretted outside of plesk as the correct values?

The reason I ask is because in my VPS managment it shows <i> or <domain> however in the customer control panels under DNS it shows the actual domain name and ip numbers.

I'm trying to figure out where the problem exists in my system. I have 3 ip numbers for nameservers ns1 - ns3 and if I try to see a domain I have pointed to the server I get no a server not found error. If I do a whois lookup, I see the name servers and ip addresses in correct order so that appears to be correct and it could be that it is taking a long time to resolve but I can't be sure. Usually DNS changes are pretty quick and certainly resolved withing 12 - 18 hours I find.

ns1.lunahost.ca 204.244.182.193
ns2.lunahost.ca 204.244.182.213
ns3.lunahost.ca 204.244.185.20

The website I'm querying is http://www.gothamcitystudios.ca (should just show Plesk temp page)


EDIT: The issues I was having have been resolved apparently Bind service was offline and although everything else seemed to be in place, that was the final piece of the puzzle. This is a great thread. I will book mark it for reference.

Cheers,
Andrew
 
Last edited:
Faris Raouf I followed your guide which is excellent, I have 1 question though.

I have setup a domain to be my main nameserver, eg mymaindomain.com and have created ns1.mymaindomain.com and ns2.mymaindomain.com. I have used 1 other domain subscription in plesk to test eg myotherdomain.com, the domain name provider is 123-reg, and I set my nameservers here to point to ns1.mymaindomain.com and ns2.mymaindomain.com.

If I have a client that would like a site hosting by us, but emails hosted elsewhere, would I still use the main nameservers, or would I create A records to point to my plesk IP address, and MX records to point to the emails, negating the need for ns1.mymaindomain.com and ns2.mymaindomain.com?

thanks
 
Last edited:
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